Dodging a Bullet
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: Kurt is sitting in a bar, trying to drown his sorrows and plan his next move regarding Blaine when Sebastian finds him by accident. Aside from being his usual obnoxious self, he gives Kurt some painful and unexpected news. Kurt H. Sebastian S.


**A/N:** _After writing 'The Darndest Thing', I was asked to write a story of how Kurt and Sebastian became boyfriends. So, here it is, the precursor to that story. Warning for spoilers regarding episode 6x01, angst, mention of Blaine/Klaine/Blainofsky, language, alcohol._

It was like a scene out of the movie _Casablanca._

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Sebastian had to walk into Kurt's.

It wasn't really that big of a surprise. Kurt knew that Sebastian lived in the city and attended NYU. Kurt and Blaine had run into him at this very night club several times while Sebastian was on the prowl. But tonight of all nights, Kurt didn't want to handle him. He couldn't handle the sneering and the lewd comments. He just wanted to be left alone to wallow and cliché-ly drown in his glass of Long Island Iced Tea - not that he'd even taken a sip yet. He'd been sitting watching the ice cubes melt for the past two hours.

Unfortunately for Kurt, the club was pretty much dead, and in his vintage Vivienne Westwood suit, he stuck out like a sore but well-dressed thumb.

"Hello, princess," Sebastian said, helping himself to the seat beside Kurt at the bar. "You're looking a little lonely tonight. Where's your boy toy? I thought he'd be sitting beside you, holding your purse."

"Why don't you go fuck yourself?" Kurt snarled, stirring his drink, watching it slosh to the top with little rivers pouring over the edge.

"You know, I should," Sebastian agreed. "The city's dull as shit, and I mean, no one can do me better than me."

"Ugh," Kurt groaned. "You disgust me."

"I know I do," Sebastian said, "but really, it's all a part of my charm."

Kurt couldn't even think of a comeback suitable enough to get rid of Sebastian, so he stayed quiet, hoping Sebastian would get the hint for once and go away.

"Frankly, it's serendipitous that I found you," Sebastian said, motioning for the bartender and squashing all of Kurt's hopes that he would be leaving anytime soon. "Relieves me of the trouble of tracking your ass down and breaking into your place."

"Why the fuck would you be looking for me?" Kurt grumbled though not too concerned. Kurt had always been Sebastian's favorite punching bag, and he did say he was bored…

"Well, a little birdy told me there was trouble in paradise," Sebastian revealed.

"Then it's Blaine you want, right?" Kurt snapped, pushing his drink away and preparing to leave. "Isn't it _his_ pants you were trying to get into all through high school?"

"Actually, it looks like someone else might have beaten me to it."

Kurt's head whipped to the side to glare at Sebastian.

"Wh-what do you mean?" Kurt asked, incredulous to Sebastian's accusations. Kurt and Blaine didn't officially break up. Sure, they broke off their engagement, but as far as Kurt was concerned it was simply on hold. Blaine, however, let it hit him too hard. He flunked out of NYADA and moved back to Westerville with his parents for the time being. But it was all temporary. He wouldn't date somebody else…would he?

"When's the last time you checked his Facebook?" Sebastian asked, his voice softer, less conceited than before. He pulled his iPhone from his pocket and scrolled through something on the screen.

"I…I haven't checked it since he left," Kurt said, sobering up even though he wasn't drunk. "That was a few months ago."

"Well, then Dapper Dan moved on fast." Sebastian turned the screen so that Kurt could see. It was Blaine's Facebook profile. Apparently he and Sebastian were still Facebook friends. Under the _about_ column (where Kurt's relationship status had been changed from _engaged_ to _it's complicated_), Blaine's had been changed to _in a relationship_.

"In a relationship?" Kurt muttered, feeling suddenly cold inside. "With who?" Kurt squinted at the screen, and his heart dropped straight into his churning stomach. "Dave Karofsky!?"

"What will you have?" the bartender asked, walking up to Sebastian and setting a napkin down in front of him on the bar. Sebastian watched Kurt snatch the phone out of his hand and walk off with it, scrolling further down the screen.

"I'll have a Sam Adams Boston Lager," Sebastian said, his eyes trailing Kurt as he dropped down into a chair at a nearby table and began to sob, "and can you bring my friend weepy over there a bottle of Cuervo Gold? I think it's going to be a long night."

* * *

><p>Kurt sloppily downed his fifth shot, sniffling and wiping away the remains of hot tears after he put the glass back on the table.<p>

"So he left," Kurt whimpered. "He went back to Ohio, sucked back into that black hole on earth to become just another Lima Loser…or, what do they call losers in Westerville?"

"Losers," Sebastian answered, refilling Kurt's glass.

"Right," Kurt said, picking up the shot and staring down into it thoughtfully before bringing it to his lips and drinking it down. "I mean, I miss him," Kurt said, motioning with his hand for Sebastian to pour him another, "but whenever I feel like getting him back – of going down to that Hellhole Ohio to get him back – I get this knot in my gut. It's heavy and it hurts, so I don't know what the right thing to do is anymore."

"Well, speaking totally as an outsider," Sebastian said, watching Kurt down another shot with barely a breath in between drinks, "I would say that Blaine's exercising his options. Maybe you should do the same."

"You mean, date someone else?" Kurt asked, staring Sebastian down for another shot.

"That wouldn't be a bad idea." Sebastian poured a shot. He drank it quickly while Kurt whined, and then poured another. Kurt grabbed it and sucked the shot glass dry, slamming it down on the table after.

Kurt looked at Sebastian, his face relaxing into a loopy grin.

"You know, thank you for this," Kurt said, his words slurring together a bit.

"What, for getting you drunk?" Sebastian asked, pouring Kurt another shot.

"Yes," Kurt said definitively, and Sebastian laughed. It was warm and genuine, and Kurt liked hearing it. "But also for talking to me about this. I mean, I would talk to Mercedes, but she's out on tour, and Rachel's life is going to shit with her t.v. show tanking and her dad's getting divorced…"

Sebastian put the shot glass in Kurt's hand and pushed it up toward his face.

"Less talking, more drinking," he coaxed, but with that same warm laugh.

Kurt shrugged and drank the shot, pushing the empty glass into Sebastian's hand for a refill.

"But, I don't know," Kurt continued, watching Sebastian pour his drink, "if it's because we never really had a chance to talk, or because we're more mature now than we were back in high school, but I'm beginning to think you and I…" Kurt motioned back and forth between them with his index fingers, "I think we have more in common than we know."

Something unfamiliar flashed in Sebastian's eyes as he handed Kurt his drink.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I know how you feel."

Kurt took his drink, and as that flash in Sebastian's eyes faded, Kurt thought for a moment that it looked a little like longing…or maybe regret.

Kurt finished his shot and sighed deeply.

"And you're right," Kurt said, waving his hand dramatically, tilting in his chair. Sebastian reached out a hand to grab his arm before he could slide to the floor. "Blaine's a loser."

"There you go," Sebastian agreed, clapping Kurt on the shoulder.

"If he's…if he's going to move on, then I'm going to move on, too. Give someone else a chance."

"You have every right," Sebastian said.

Kurt smiled dopily, not seeming to notice how Sebastian inched his seat over little by little to get closer to him.

"I have options," Kurt continued, with Sebastian nodding and smiling at every word.

"You do…" Sebastian slid over close enough now to feel Kurt's shoulder knock against his own.

"And I'm…I'm going to use them, dammit." Kurt slammed his fist down on the table, clattering the empty shot glass and almost overturning Sebastian's beer glass in the process.

"Hear, hear." Sebastian leaned forward, brushing the shell of Kurt's ear with his nose, breathing him in.

"I know exactly what I'm going to do," Kurt said decisively, oblivious to Sebastian preparing to kiss his neck.

"And what's that?" Sebastian whispered.

Kurt paused, caught between a decision that meant freedom…or Blaine.

"I'm going to go to Ohio tonight and get him back."

Sebastian pulled back quickly and scowled at Kurt, but Kurt's quivering lower lip stopped his acidic retort dead in his throat.

"Is that really what you think you should do?" Sebastian asked flatly, not sure he even cared at this point.

"Yes," Kurt nodded, blinking against the sudden swirling in his head. "Yes I do. Don't…don't you?"

Sebastian looked into Kurt's hopeful blue eyes.

No, he didn't. Of course he didn't. Only an idiot would run back to Ohio to win back that loser. Sebastian was a lot of things in the past, but he had changed, and at the moment he grew up enough to regret how much of an asshole he had been to practically everybody he ever knew, he also realized there was one person he had really hoped to get a second chance with.

That person was sitting opposite him now, begging Sebastian to agree that this plan to win back his douchebag ex was a viable one.

Sebastian opened his mouth, but he found he couldn't say any of that, not to Kurt, not with those eyes staring at him like a lost kitten.

"Here's what we'll do," he said instead. "Take another shot, and while you do, think of everything you said five minutes ago – everything about Blaine being an ass…"

"I never said Blaine was an…"

"…and Ohio being a black hole on earth," Sebastian rallied on. "And if after you finish swallowing, you still feel like going home, I'll put you on a train myself." Sebastian smirked, trying to regain his footing. "Shit, I'll even go with you."

"Okay," Kurt muttered. Sebastian poured him the shot and Kurt picked it up, the gold colored liquid spilling over the fingers of his unsteady hand. He brought the glass to his lips and tossed back the alcohol with a single snap of his neck. He swallowed quickly, and Sebastian watched, hoping that Kurt would either change his mind…or pass out.

Kurt brought the shot glass down on the table hard, his eyes shifting with the wave of alcohol adding to his current level of inebriation. He stared significantly into Sebastian's green eyes and nodded.

"I want to go," Kurt said earnestly, although admittedly he was less than sure and hoping that it wasn't the alcohol in his system talking for him. "I want to get him back."

"Alright, princess," Sebastian said with a wry twist to his normally confident grin. He stood up and reached into his back pocket for his wallet, raising a hand for the waitress to bring him their tab. "Let's get you on a train, then."

* * *

><p>Kurt didn't know he fell asleep. His last memories included his heart racing as he watched Sebastian buy their tickets. The actual waiting for the train and boarding were a blur, and he had no recollection of his ass hitting the seat altogether. Whatever words were announced over the loudspeaker when the train pulled out of the station were lost entirely to exhaustion, and while he tried to formulate a game plan in his head, he drifted into an entirely blank and dreamless sleep, as if his mind were trying to wipe itself clean.<p>

But his body felt the train slowing to a stop, and it tugged at his brain. His waking head throbbed with the aftershocks of too much alcohol and way too much crying. He heard the words, "Last stop," but they were thick and fuzzy, as if they were being called out through mud.

His brow furrowed in his half-asleep state.

Last stop? The train they were taking should have let them off in Toledo, but when was that ever the last stop?

Kurt turned his face in the direction of the window and he immediately knew something was wrong. The bright light shining through his eyelids looked…different. He blinked his eyes slowly. They didn't open the first time. The next time they separated to mere slits. He pried them open and forced himself to stare into the light. He gazed at the view of clear blue sky, skeletal trees, and brown stone buildings outside his window.

This was definitely not Toledo.

"You're finally awake," a snide voice beside him remarked. "Good morning, princess. Well, afternoon, technically."

Kurt turned his head slightly to see Sebastian sitting beside him, elbows on the arm rests of his chair, hands tented beneath his chin.

"Where…where are we?" Kurt asked, his voice rough, his throat raw like he'd been gargling sand paper.

"Niagra Falls."

Kurt thought Sebastian was joking, sitting quietly and gauging Kurt's response, but then suddenly everything in his swimming head made sense. He sat bolt upright, his brain screaming at him to get back down and be still, but Kurt was in a slight panic.

This wasn't where he was supposed to be! He was supposed to be in Ohio, winning back Blaine, though he couldn't ignore the strange wash of relief filling his body.

It was probably just the calm overtaking him before he threw up.

"Niagra Falls!?" he exclaimed, a cold sweat breaking out all over his skin. "Why the fuck are we in Niagra Falls!? You said you were taking me to Ohio!"

"I didn't say that exactly," Sebastian pointed out.

"Yes, you did," Kurt argued. "I remember specifically, you said that if I still wanted to go win Blaine back, you would put me on a train to Ohio yourself. Why you felt the need to come with me…"

"Nope," Sebastian cut in with an infuriating grin, "I said _I'd put you on a train_. I never said to where."

Kurt's jaw dropped and his eyes bugged in their sockets. He wondered how badly his head would explode if he took a swing at Sebastian's stupid little meerkat face.

He should have known better than to trust Sebastian Smythe.

Kurt couldn't think of an insult strong enough, a word cruel enough to throw at Sebastian, so he had no choice but to wait for the inevitable gloating. Better to get it over with right away than to have to endure it on the long ride back to Penn Station.

Kurt waited, but that didn't happen. Instead, Sebastian's expression changed. The cocky façade melted away and he dropped his eyes to Kurt's hands in his lap.

"Look," Sebastian said, "you don't have any reason to care about me or my opinion, but believe me when I tell you I have quite a bit of experience being fucked over by men."

He swallowed hard and put a hand over Kurt's hand, squeezing gently. Sebastian looked back up into Kurt's eyes, and Kurt could tell that this was no act. This was the _real_ Sebastian, the Sebastian that Kurt had never met until last night.

"If you leave New York now," Sebastian continued, "if you give up your dreams and follow Blaine back to that place you literally called a Hellhole, you'll regret it."

Kurt knew this was true. It went against everything he felt he should be doing in his heart, but his head knew it was true.

"But…but I…"

"Kurt," Sebastian said, reaching out his free hand and cupping it beneath Kurt's chin, "tell me – that feeling you get in your gut when you think about getting Blaine back, does it compare to the feeling you get everyday walking through the doors of NYADA, or walking out on stage, or making one of those frilly outfits of yours?" Kurt frowned, but he didn't interrupt. "Because if you can say it's the same feeling, or _better_, then I swear on my life I'll rent us a car and drive you to Ohio right the fuck now, right up to Blaine Anderson's front door…but I don't think we'll be going to Ohio, because you honestly can't say that…can you?"

Kurt didn't answer. His mouth had gone positively arid, but it didn't matter, because nothing he could say would be truer than everything Sebastian had already said for him.

Sebastian ducked his head, moving closer.

"You talked about giving other people a chance," he said. "Maybe you could start with that. Maybe you could start right now."

Sebastian's lips brushed against Kurt's, and Kurt held his breath. This was quickly becoming almost almost surreal. Was Sebastian Smythe going to kiss him?

Did Kurt want him, too?

If this was the Sebastian he had met in high school, the answer would be undoubtedly no.

But this Sebastian…yes. Definitely yes.

Kurt heard the sharp, demanding sound of a throat clearing and looked up instinctively at an aggravated man in a blue Amtrak uniform staring at them, pointing to a nonexistent watch on his wrist. Sebastian saw the man, too. With a scowl on his face, he raised a hand.

"Just a second," Sebastian called. The man threw up his hands in frustration and grumbled under his breath, but he walked away, leaving them alone.

Kurt felt his head pound again. He groaned, dropping back into his seat, pulling away from what would have definitely been an awkward kiss considering how much Kurt felt like he wanted to die. He heard Sebastian curse, and looked up to see him shaking his head.

"This is crazy," Kurt said.

"Yeah," Sebastian agreed, "well I can one up you in the crazy department."

"Really," Kurt said with a chuckle. "How's that?"

"What are you doing for the next 72 hours?" Sebastian grinned, standing up from his seat and reaching out for Kurt's hands.

"Uh…nothing, I guess," Kurt admitted, taking Sebastian's hands and letting Sebastian pull him up. "Why?"

Sebastian stole a kiss - a small one on the tip of Kurt's nose.

"Have you ever been to Niagra Falls?"


End file.
